I want to think in this blogpost about how the Cameron premiership might end. It may seem odd to do this when Cameron hasn't even become Prime Minister yet, but I believe that for a premiership to be a success, it's important to understand properly the nature of the challenges to be faced.
It has become a commonplace in senior Conservative circles now to accept that the incoming government will rapidly become very unpopular. Public spending cuts, rising unemployment, and struggles with unions over public service reform are thought likely to make the government the most hated since Thatcher and perhaps even more than that. Not quite the sunny uplands Conservatism that Cameron originally hoped to promulgate.
Some commentators suggest that this might make politics in the 2010s much more like the 1960s and 1970s than like the 1979-2010 period, with frequent switches of administration between Conservative and Labour. I think that's most unlikely. I think it's much more likely that unpopularity will lead, much more quickly than most people expect, to challenges to Cameron from within the Conservative Party. If his administration is to be a success, he needs to understand and anticipate this from the beginning.
What are some of the potential internal sources of threat? The first and most obvious will probably concern the balance between spending cuts and tax rises in correcting the UK's terrible fiscal disaster, how far and fast matters should go, and where tax rises or spending cuts should fall. It seems inevitable that there will be some voices claiming that he is not going far enough or fast enough in his plans. Some people will believe that most of the correction should take the form of tax rises, others will think he's not cutting spending by enough. Whichever departments experience tax cuts, people with a pet interest in that area will urge that the cuts should fall elsewhere - probably the three most obvious areas of great controversy will be defence, benefits, and the NHS.
The next potential driver of discontent will be Europe. If he does nothing, splits will become wide and damaging within months of his taking office. If he tries to proceed in an orderly but resolute manner, matters may drag on and scepticism will grow. If his approach is too aggressive, those that want to stay in the EU may fear that his approach will lead inexorably to withdrawal. Europe is a particularly dangerous issue in that it could form a natural point of coalescence for discontent about other issues. And if Labour disintegrates, which is no longer as implausible as it seemed only a few months ago, one scenario not widely discussed is that UKIP might be among the more likely inheritors of the role of main opposition to the Conservative Party.
Cameron has quite ambitious plans for reforming the way that public services are delivered and paid for. There may, in fact, be less resistance to some of his ideas than expected in some quarters, but it is certainly possible that this will be another source of unpopularity.
There will also a plethora of other areas, such as political correctness, health and safety rules, and so on in which Cameron may well be a divisive, love-him-or-hate-him figure.
Now, incoming administrations often face pressures. There are two main ways these tend to be negotiated by parties. One is through overwhelming majorities and the sense that only you can deliver them. For example, though Blair always faced significant internal opposition, and indeed large rebellions in votes right from the beginning of his term, for all the early years he had huge majorities that could render splits largely irrelevant and also it was widely believed in the Labour Party (even amongst many of his opponents) that the party could not have won (or win again) without him. Cameron may have large majorities, but his internal opponents do not (and have no reason to) believe that it is only because of him that Conservatives will return to office.
Denied the Blair card of "you can't win without me", Cameron will need to rely much more upon the second route: tribal loyalty and team play. He will need his MPs and others in the Party to think: "He leads; we follow."
But tribal loyalty to a leader typically needs to be earned, particularly by the leader being sometimes loyal to his MPs, even at personal cost to himself, when times are tough for them. My sense is that many MPs do not believe he has been loyal to them over the expenses matter. The Guardian today suggests that "The leadership has treated MPs in a very high-handed manner", and "There is a lot of ill will towards Cameron. Everyone is falling into line because there is a general election looming. There would be open revolt otherwise."
At the start of this week ToryDiary noted what it called "The grim mood of the Parliamentary Conservative Party". As it said, "MPs have long memories and Cameron will need their support in tougher times". He will indeed need it, and I don't think he can rely on getting it. The Conservative Party is likely to dominate politics for the next fifteen years after the General Election. Cameron...well, unless he finds a way to restore his MPs' tribal loyalty to him, he may be Prime Minister for no more than three.
